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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26426017">Touch Me Like a Razor Blade</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ADeedWithoutaName/pseuds/ADeedWithoutaName'>ADeedWithoutaName</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, BDSM, Bondage, Cock Cage, Dom!Sam, First Time, Flogging, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sub!Dean, Temperature Play, Wax Play, Wincest - Freeform, blindfolding, bottom!Dean, s14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 03:14:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Underage</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>18,335</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26426017</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ADeedWithoutaName/pseuds/ADeedWithoutaName</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>For as long as he can remember, sins have caused Dean physical pain. Like, for example, murder. Or lust. Or incest.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sam Winchester/Dean Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>88</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Touch Me Like a Razor Blade</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dean thinks he's three or four, the first time it happens.</p><p>He won't remember his exact age (though he'll know he had to have been at least three, with the gentle swell of Mom's stomach he's been told is his baby brother). He won't remember whether it was cold outside, or whether spring was coming. He won't even be entirely sure what pissed Mom off in the first place. Mostly, what he'll remember, what will tack this moment down, is the pain.</p><p>There's a <em>crunch</em>, flat shoe on a diecast car, and a yelp from Mom. A second later, she's stomping into the living room where Dean's watching <em>Sesame Street </em>and jabbing a finger at the TV's power button. He makes an upset noise as the screen snaps lifeless, looking up at her. Her hands are on her hips. Her jaw is tight. It's what Daddy calls her "business-meaning" face.</p><p>Dean already knows he's in trouble, just not why yet, and there's a queasy panic feeling stirring in his stomach.</p><p>"I told you that you had to pick up your toy cars before you could watch TV, didn't I?" Mom asks. When she waits, Dean knows she wants an answer from him.</p><p>"Yes."</p><p>"And I watched you do it."</p><p>He nods.</p><p>"Dean Winchester." He squirms. He does not like his full name. "Did you wait 'til my back was turned and then get them all back out?"</p><p>It's completely automatic, pretty much - Dean just doesn't want to get yelled at. He shakes his head before he can even think about it, blurting "No."</p><p>There's a second where Mom's eyes start to narrow.</p><p>Then the pain sets in.</p><p>Dean stepped on a bee in the yard last summer, a brittle thrash of tiny, spiny legs before the sting came, and this feels a lot like that. All hot and wrong and somehow instinctively venomous. But this is on his tongue, a throb that hits in the middle and makes his baby teeth rattle with the shockwave of it.</p><p>It's not even that bad, starts fading almost immediately, but the shock of the pain and the location has him bursting instantly into tears.</p><p>Mom's suddenly not mad anymore, reaching for him, picking him up, holding him close as she assures him it wasn't a big deal, she just doesn't want his toys left out because they break when she steps on them. She smells like cinnamon. It takes a while, but Dean eventually manages to get out, in painful, hitching syllables, that he's not crying because of that (even though he's sorry, very, very sorry).</p><p>Mom looks at his tongue and all the rest of his mouth with a flashlight, has him lift and <em>aaa</em> the same as the doctor does, frowning worriedly the whole time, but she doesn't find anything. Dean is shocked, but he doesn't see anything either when she lifts him up to the mirror. Mom has him suck on a Popsicle anyway. Grape. He must've bitten himself by accident, somehow. That's what she figures.</p><p>Dean knows he didn't. But the pain and the shock and the crying wore him out, so he takes his nap early that day. Soon as he finishes the Popsicle.</p><hr/><p>By the time Dad starts showing him the ropes, Dean's figured out what it is. The pain that clotheslines him at least once a day, usually more, when he says or does something he knows he's probably not supposed to be. So he's ready, the first time he fires a gun at a living thing, knowing the bullet will hurt it, wanting it to.</p><p>It's not a surprise when it feels like he's plunged both arms into a bucket of broken glass up to the elbows, stray silver hurts flashing here and there around his chest and face. He's proud of himself actually, because he barely flinches. Not even enough to throw the bullet off.</p><p>He's used to it. He's been helping Dad out a little bit at a time for years now, which he couldn't be more excited about. It felt like a pinch of hair ripped off his scalp when he lied to the sweet old librarian about what he needed those books on occultism for. It's a slap when he uses credit cards or money he knows they didn't come by honestly. A quick boot to the chest when he skips school. This is...maybe worse than the rest, worse than anything else has ever been for him. But he handles it.</p><p>Dad sees the flinch anyway, the trembling Dean can't help as he fights to keep himself under control with the pain working through him. He completely misunderstands what it is, clapping a hand tight on his shoulder and squeezing.</p><p>"You did good," Dad tells him brusquely.</p><p>A second passes. The thing is down and bleeding out, still wound up in the trap Dean helped Dad set. It's already begun to fall to pieces, no salt-and-burn on this one.</p><p>"You hungry?" Dad asks. "Pretty sure that diner we hit for lunch yesterday is open twenty-four-seven, and they make a mean apple pie. 'Cording to folks around here, at least."</p><p>"Yeah." Dean nods, exhales, lowers the gun slowly as agony and aftershock jangle around in his muscles. "Let's go."</p><p>He smiles up at Dad as they walk back to the car. Even though he doesn't say anything, doesn't tell him he's fine, thin, shivery lines draw themselves down either side of his throat, imaginary wounds that would pump him dry in minutes if they were real. Same as the monster he just caught in the heart.</p><hr/><p>Sam and Dean's first kiss doesn't actually hurt. Not at first.</p><p>In the future, whenever Dean starts doubting he's stupid, he'll come back to this moment, because he had to be the dumbest person in the world not to see it coming. The embarrassment, Sam flat-out refusing to let Dean see him naked, pushing him away...and how damn <em>lovesick </em>he's been for so long now, all moony stares and long sighs in the car with headphones that might as well be an astronaut helmet, for their size and isolation, clamped down over his ears.</p><p>Yeah, in the future, no doubt at all Dean will cringe thinking about how he and Dad both teased Sam about a girl, started listing names from the last half-dozen towns they'd been in. But for now, he is twenty-one, Sam is seventeen, and Dad left them roasting in the parking lot of some backwoods hick-ass watering hole.</p><p>Half the letters in the neon sign are dead, RAYMOND'S turning into R YM'S at night. Dean's seething, because he doesn't even need a fake ID anymore, and even if Sam's are about as unconvincing as a six-dollar bill, there's no way this place cards. But <em>nah, </em>Sam's gotta stay out here and do <em>homework, </em>and Dean's gotta stay with him 'cause, as Dad said, they've got a pack of zombie-making cultists roaming the bayou who aren't too picky about whether they use a corpse or a living person.</p><p>Dean wanted to ask what the fuck they're doing at a bar, then. He didn't. But Sam did, which earned him some choice words from Dad, so now they're both in a bad mood. Or a worse mood, for Sam.</p><p>They've been bickering since Dad left, just like they do all the goddamn time these days, and it's not easy, it's not light. It feels like trying to drive with a headache and it's slowly winding up into a genuine fight, one that Dean knows will do absolutely shit-all to relieve the tension between them. He's hot and sticky and frustrated and he wants Sam back the way he used to be, little brother who's smoldered like an ember since the first time Mom and Dad put him in Dean's arms. But at the same time, he understands this is a good thing. He thinks some days he kinda wants Sam to hate him. That he needs him to.</p><p>He's been feeling things, for the past couple years. Thinking things. It started soon as he could look at Sam and see shadows of the man he's going to grow into, almost the same way he could see the shape of baby-him inside their mom. And all these things he's thinking and feeling hurt. Sometimes, when his blood's pumping hot, it's like a kick in the balls, which he's familiar with. He's felt that with other people he wanted in the same basic way.</p><p>But sometimes he's got this idea in his head of sharing a bed with Sam. Spending a day with him out in the wind and the sunshine, just to see those dimples. There's occasionally even this misty little half-vision of the two of them all grown up and living in a house somewhere with a dog and a yard and normal-people jobs, at least for Sam. All that stupid stuff is like poison in his veins, a slow, aching ice creeping down from the base of his skull, eating more and more of him until he manages to shut the train of thought down.</p><p>Dean's only thinking about that out on the periphery, same as he usually is, as he and Sam trade insults and accusations that are steadily getting heavier and heavier. Sam's just told him he might as well leave him to the tender mercies of the cult and go have a beer or ten with Dad, if he's always gonna take his side.</p><p>"Maybe I wouldn't have to if you weren't such a little snot these days." Dean smacks a mosquito, but can't close the windows unless they want to drown in their own sweat. "Swear to god, like you found a damn manual or something. 'How to Be an Angsty Teen For Dummies.'"</p><p>"You don't get it," Sam bites out, and Dean snorts.</p><p>"Oh, actually, y'know what, I think I do," he states. Like he was never seventeen. "Everything you're going through right now? I went through it too, man."</p><p>"Not everything," Sam mutters from the back seat. Dean resituates himself in the front.</p><p>"Yeah," he confirms. "Everything."</p><p>Sam doesn't say anything. Dean stares out the rain-dropped windshield, ambient insect buzz twinging behind his eyes, and thinks about going in real quick just to grab the two of them something to drink. Or maybe just himself, he doesn't think Sam's really earned a soda. He's just turning around, about to tell Sam to go ahead and finish his precious homework already, but he never gets the chance because Sam meets him in a kiss.</p><p>It's clumsy. Surprisingly chaste, no tongue and lips practically sealed; more of a peck than anything else, especially with how off-center it lands. Sam immediately pulls back.</p><p>There's light bleeding in from the bar. A crescent moon of glow from the flashlight Sam's been aiming at his textbook. But Dean could've guessed his expression even if they were in total darkness. Eyes wide and shocked. Face paper-white except for the massive blush blotching itself across the cheekbones that are just starting to surface through the baby fat. Mortified, horrified, the look of a kid who can't believe he just did that and is desperately wishing that real life had an undo button.</p><p>It didn't hurt. It doesn't hurt. Not really, not behind Sam's usual pulsing burn of heat. It was so quick, so shy, practically virginal, because...of course Sam is. Dean just sits there, every bit as shocked as Sam, and it's probably only a second or two, but it feels like forever before he realizes he can feel his pulse in his cock. Before he realizes there's heat in his throat, his face, his chest. And then it starts hurting.</p><p>His heart throbs inside him like it's infected, every beat painful, the ache of a wound gone sour starting to spread through his chest. Sammy's little-brother germs must have fried his brain or something, because his first thought, stupidly, is that he's having a heart attack, all that bacon coming back to bite him in the ass. Then he figures out what it actually is and it's a relief. In the way figuring out the person about to shoot you is somebody you recognize and not some total random, but still a relief.</p><p><em>This is different, </em>Dean finds himself thinking hazily. <em>Can't push past this one. Gotta listen to it, this time...this is wrong.</em></p><p>He's got no idea how he'll word it, but he opens his mouth to tell Sam that exact thing. But Sam cuts him off again, this time with a cracked whisper: "De."</p><p>Dean hasn't heard that nickname from him for at least a couple years, maybe even three or four. A second later, Sam's apologizing with a quiver to his voice, "sorry" three times in a row, and then he tacks on a plaintive, desperate "Please."</p><p>"C'mere," Dean says through a mouthful of fire ants.</p><p>He's put up with it before, the hurting. Probably about ten thousand times or more by now. Just pushed it to the back of his mind when he knew what was causing it was the right thing to do. By the way Sam's face breaks open in the half-darkness, all relief and hope and excitement and something so raw it's gotta be love, Dean knows this falls into that category.</p><p>Sam scrambles into the front seat, notepad and textbook and flashlight all dumped instantly off his long, skinny legs in a clatter of pencils, and Dean catches him by his baggy hoodie. Their mouths meet again and, with Dean leading, it goes more smoothly this time. Sam's mouth is soft, wet, warm, open and a little gasping, even better than all those half-baked fantasies that practically had Dean doubling over. But it also feels like kissing a box of thumbtacks marinated in acid, two opposing sensations that almost make Dean nauseous.</p><p>Sam's sat in his lap, and he can't be more than one-ten. One-twenty, maybe, with all the layers he's got on him even in the Louisiana heat, but the weight of him feels like enough to make Dean's bones creak and bow, cradle of his pelvis spreading slowly open like a butterfly, and he knows nothing will snap because it never leaves marks when he hurts like this. But he thinks about all the times he's seen wet, living bone broken anyway. The amount of force and agony it takes.</p><p>He pulls Sam close, touches him gently. This is how he thinks Sam wants him to do it, even though Dean wants to do so much more. He spreads one hand against the small of Sam's back under his hoodie and jeans, calluses sliding on teenage sweat, and the other's stroking through Sam's hair, and Sam's fever-hot with excitement and humidity, and Dean's hands feel like one's in a deep-fryer and the other's wearing a glove made of fiberglass insulation.</p><p>Sam's touching him, eager. All along his face and chest and arms and neck, seeking out bare skin, and Dean's so desperately horny, cock hard and throbbing against the press of Sam's flesh. He wants him so badly, Sammy. He loves the feel of those long fingers trailing over his skin. Handprints peppering themselves over his belly. But at the same time, it feels like Sam's palms are coated in flaming oil, and Dean can almost smell his flesh charring.</p><p>He holds out long as he can. Skin crisping. Bones splintering. Razor blades spatchcocking his lips open. He wants it, wants this, has wanted it for a long time, and he keeps remembering that broken little "please." Dean knows what it will do to Sam if he can't give him this, and besides. Not like he's any stranger to pain.</p><p>This, though. This might hurt worse than anything else he's ever done in his entire life, and it just keeps going, keeps building.</p><p>Dean thinks he can hold out. He winds up being wrong.</p><p>When it finally spills over his sky-high threshold, flooding him to the point where he just can't stand it anymore, Dean pulls away from Sam. He tries so hard not to shove him off, isn't sure whether or not he manages not to. He fumbles the door open, scrambles out, <em>away away away </em>throbbing in his brain in time with his gangrenous heart.</p><p>Dean makes it a few jerky, halting steps into the wetness of the buzzing air, lava pumping under his skin, before he folds at the waist and pukes all over his boots. He's shaking and shuddering and praying, actually, literally praying, for the pain to just please stop as it sinks deeper and deeper into him. He even forgets about Sam for a second. Until he hears his name.</p><p>"...Dean?"</p><p>Dean twists enough to see Sam sitting in the car, leaning half-out, five or six different expressions all fighting for his face. Worried and shocked and crushed and afraid and angry all at once.</p><p>"'S fine," Dean gasps raggedly out. "'S not - "</p><p>But it starts coming up again before he can finish telling Sam it's not him, half-digested diner steak on his boots, because the lie feels like a pair of wire cutters clipping through his tongue.</p><p>Sam climbs out of the car. Dean hears him coming up behind him. He sees him go to put a hand on his back, out of the corner of his eye, and before he can stop himself, Dean flinches away so hard he almost goes down. He doesn't even know if it would've hurt or not but he can't help the reaction. Not when he's burning alive.</p><p>Sam takes a step back. Dean, teeth furred and nose dripping, forces himself straight and takes a step towards him, thinking about reaching for him, but just the idea has cramps wiring themselves up and down his arms and legs. It's all he can do just to stay on his feet.</p><p>Sam leaves. Dean has to let him.</p><p>Sam comes back with an ice-cold ginger ale, still in the can, from the bar. He hands it to Dean, who's hauled himself into the back of the Impala, laying there exhausted and trembling on top of Sam's secondhand school supplies even as his skin crisps on him like he's a rotisserie chicken. Dean rolls the soda across his forehead, mouth hurting too bad right now to consider putting anything in it.</p><p>"Wasn't you," Dean rasps again to Sam. It's a wire brush across his gums. "Think I'm coming down with something."</p><p>He doesn't know if Sam doesn't believe him, or if it's just because he's a fickle little teenage bitch, but he doesn't touch Dean after that. Even though Dean sets himself ablaze at least once a day thinking about him. A month after that night, Sam leaves for Stanford.</p><p>It takes weeks for the pain of what they both want to fade complete, and soon as it's gone, Dean wants it back. He knows it should be a good thing, how little he hurts with Sam gone. But mostly it just seems cold and empty, and there are times he catches himself fantasizing about sticking his hand in a pot of boiling water or carving letters into the inside of one thigh.</p><p>Just to feel almost like he has Sam back.</p><hr/><p>Nothing has ever hurt like letting Sam die.</p><p>When Dean catches him in the rain, hugs him, holds him, the lie that he'll be okay burns like Dean's using molten glass for mouthwash. It feels like he's in a trash compactor, one where the metal is searing hot and the walls are studded with spikes, slowly twisting and squashing him down into nothing. Bones splitting and snapping, flesh pulping, organs bursting under the pressure, and it just goes on and on and on and thankfully, Bobby just figures the screaming and sobbing and rocking and puking are just because of Sam's death. Which they are, in a way.</p><p>He lays next to Sam on the bed. Next to his corpse. The smell of him's already changed, sweet and wrong, and Dean knows just from moving him earlier that he's going softer than he should be in places. He isn't <em>hot</em> anymore. The pain of him dying is fading now, days later. Either that or he's just getting used to it. Over the years, he's learned it's basically the same thing.</p><p>Touching him's needles and scorpion stings in his lips and fingers, but it isn't like it was five years ago, in Louisiana. It doesn't feel the same. And Dean knows he can't do this.</p><p>Selling his soul feels like the worst flu Dean's ever had, all body aches and chills and a tilting world swirling around in front of his swollen eyeballs. His tongue sits like a piece of beef jerky in his mouth, and there's something gone fundamentally wrong deep down inside him. Like, DNA level. But just like when he's actually sick, there's something in it he can enjoy. Something that almost comforts him.</p><p>Dean doesn't get a redo for what happened when he was twenty-one until Sam finds out about the deal he made. He'd known for years that if he was ever going to get a second chance, it's got to be Sam who makes the first move. Not because it'll hurt less, because Dean would drag himself naked and balls-down over a mile of carpet tacks for Sam. Just because he's got to know that Sam still wants it.</p><p><em>Thank fucking god,</em> Dean thinks when Sam grabs him and kisses him and lights him up from the bones outwards, already starting to cry in anger and grief. <em>Thank god.</em> Because now they have months and months with each other, almost an entire year before his time is up.</p><p>It hurts. But there's something else to the pain, something Dean sees more and more of the deeper he and Sam get in each other. And they get real deep in each other.</p><p>They must fuck enough to cross his wires, because when hellhounds tear him to shreds and carry his bleeding soul away in their teeth, it almost turns him on. Would have, if only it were Sam doing it.</p><hr/><p>Down in Hell, it takes Alastair by surprise, what Dean can take. But Dean can tell he's not the kind of guy or thing or whatever a demon counts as to back away from a challenge. He seems to relish the excuse to get creative.</p><p>He grinds Dean down over thirty years and stands behind him as Dean gives back what he's been taking for decades, thin, clawed skeleton hands on his shoulders.</p><p>"Eventually," Alastair whispers in the frozen nightmare of Hell's core, "I'll figure out a way to hurt you the way <em>he </em>did." A tail that was once a normal, human spine, since stretched into an abomination of withered nerves and spare bone, drags its tip from Dean's belly button to his dick, carving through the congealed gore that clothes him. "We have eternity together, after all. I'll find a way to give you what you so desperately need."</p><p>Dean says nothing. His tongue has long since healed from the last time Alastair flayed it into a dozen strips still connected at the root, but he's learned talking doesn't get him far down here. Where snow made from blood instead of water falls constantly, and the ache of the cold never leaves, and he's just a background figure in a heavy-metal album art snapshot of decay and suffering.</p><p>"Of course, by the time I get done with you," Alastair goes on, "you won't have to worry about pain like that from anyone but me ever again."</p><p>It should be impossible to feel something without lips smile against the back of your neck. Turns out it's not.</p><p>"You won't be holy anymore. You won't be their <em>Righteous Man.</em>"</p><p>It will be many years in Hell, and then months on Earth, before that makes any kind of sense to Dean.</p><hr/><p>Turns out Alastair's wrong (<em>A demon, lying? Jeez, whoulda thunk it?</em>), because things hurt the same as they always have when Dean gets back topside. Lying in his mouth, violence in his hands, arms, legs, feet, lust in his crotch. If anything, it's worse.</p><p>But it feels like some kind of confirmation he's still whole. Still him. Especially when Dean's with Sam and he's burning alive in the way Alastair never could replicate, no matter how many times he set him on fire, inside and out.</p><p>Over the years, they get better with each other, find their rhythm and their spaces and their meanings all in relation to each other. And Dean gets better, too. Not only does he get steadily more used to how Sam hurts him, 'til he can finally have an orgasm without knocking himself out (Sam's both relieved and disappointed by that one, used to worry him but he also thought he was just that good under the sheets), but he learns how to pull away before he throws up or damn near has a seizure. And they are working in a way Dean never would've thought they could.</p><p>It goes on like that, for years and years. Through Sam's soulless stint, when Dean knew something was up because he didn't <em>hurt</em> the same way he used to, the pain of his touch hollow and empty. Through Leviathans. The Gates of Hell. The Mark of Cain, steeping Dean in sin so that he walked around with nails in his bones and his nerve endings bathing in lemon juice every day. Amara. Fucking Lucifer again. Jack.</p><p>The only place Dean doesn't hurt is Purgatory, and that scares him so damn much he has to fight his way back to the real world as fast as he can, and he doesn't care how "pure" it is there, even Hell had pain.</p><p>He lives with it. It wears at him and he knows he's got more gray hair at the temples than a guy his age should, and he's more tired, has a shorter temper, and he feels so fucking dumb when a thought drifts away from him because he's snagged on hurt again. But hunting probably could've caused all that on its own anyway and besides, not like he's ever lived without it. Dean already knows he doesn't want to.</p><p>It works. They work. Him and Sam.</p><p>All the way up until Michael happens.</p><hr/><p>Dean starts stripping off the stupid clothes Michael had him prancing around in the second he gets to his room, balling them up and hurling them at the floor. It's less satisfying than he wants it to be. He's halfway to naked when Sam comes in, closing the door Dean didn't think about locking because when he left, there weren't two dozen new people living here.</p><p>"Hey," Sam says quietly.</p><p>"Hey," Dean says back, short. He doesn't look at Sam until he's down to his underwear. His <em>briefs. </em>Michael put briefs on him, for Chrissakes.</p><p>He has to hook them off and kick them into the wall. Can't stand the feel of anything Michael liked or wanted against his skin.</p><p>Sam and Dean just stand there for a second, looking at each other, the gulf of half Dean's room in between them. It's silent until Dean blurts out, kneejerk, "Dude, what's with the…?"</p><p>He trails off, gesturing to his own face, and Sam smiles painfully through the beard he's let run wild in Dean's absence.</p><p>"You don't like it?"</p><p>"Just wondering what it'd feel like to have that thing all over my face." Dean grimaces. "Or between my legs."</p><p>"Well…" Sam takes a step towards him. "Wanna find out?"</p><p>Dean is already leaning into it when Sam goes to touch him. Because Michael was the same as Purgatory: no pain, and especially no Sam. Dean feels like an addict with his first hit in a decade right in front of him. He wants to fall into Sam and let the last few months dissolve behind him. He is ready to be back where he belongs.</p><p>And then Sam touches him.</p><p>Dean's never felt anything like it before. It's an electric fence, an ice cube on a cavity, a heel coming down on a roofing nail, except not, because it's so much worse. He can't even really compare it to anything because it melts his thoughts together into one massive scream that only stays inside because his jaw locks up. And Michael gives a sudden, gleeful kick to his door inside Dean that almost, not quite but almost, makes it budge a little.</p><p>Dean can't help flinching away. Sam whips his hand back like Dean burned him, staring at him in shock and confusion. Dean feels twenty-one again. Sick and guilty.</p><p>"Sorry," Dean apologizes. His breathing's about as smooth as a Detroit road and his pulse feels like it's gonna pop every vein in his body. "Think I just - need a minute. Michael…"</p><p>The lie is a cheese grater across every soft surface in his mouth. Before, it might've just been a staple in his tongue.</p><p>Sam nods. "I understand," he says quietly, and Dean thinks of Lucifer, and knows he does. Honestly, that just makes it worse.</p><hr/><p>It's hard to find any kind of peace in the bunker these days, with Sam's adopted gaggle of refugees nesting here and following him around like ducklings, so Dean mostly sticks to his room. He hibernates in there, learns to lock the door, gets used to Michael inside him, like a sunken nuclear core paved over with concrete. Feel the heat of it under your soles and hope it's not poisoning you, hope it won't blow up anytime soon.</p><p>Dean aches for Sam. Just like always, it puts fishhooks under his skin. He can handle them, and that lets him convince himself more than halfway that they're the same size and shape they've always been rather than worse. He just needed time to get used to it again, Dean reasons, after a few months without it. No biggie. Happened after Purgatory, too. So soon as he can snag some alone time with Sam in the kitchen, Dean goes to touch him.</p><p>Sam smiles softly, lovingly, turning towards him with a look like somebody finally seeing home coming up on the horizon, and Dean cups his jaw.</p><p>He thought he could take it. He thought it wouldn't be so bad this time. He thought not having Sam and needing him was worse than any pain of touch could be.</p><p>Dean whips his hand back like Sam tried to bite him, hissing as an acid jolt rips its way up his nerves and breeds in his chest. And of course now Sam's freaking out, reaching for him, but Dean backs away, can't stop himself, shaking his head even as he grimaces.</p><p>"Can't," he rasps. "Can't take anything else right now."</p><p>He feels raw, like he's been skinned and shoved outside in the stinging needles of a blizzard. Which he has been. In Hell. But it never felt like this, he didn't even know pain <em>could </em>hit him like this.</p><p>And Michael is laughing. Dean can't hear him, behind that sealed door. But he knows anyway.</p><p>Sam just stands there as Dean clenches his hands together until it feels like his fingers are about to break, struggling to breathe, to bring himself to heel. There's shock Sam's not even trying to hide on his face and he's standing there with his own hands half-up, a tremble visible in his legs and trunk, like he doesn't know how to compensate for not being able to touch Dean. Like the only way he can think of to make it better means skin-on-skin. Dean wants to tell him it's okay, but it's all he can do to stay on his feet, with someone chainsawing a furrow between the long bones of his forearm.</p><p>Once he's caught his breath, agony dimming down to a manageable, familiar level, Dean sags against the island. He slept eleven hours today and now he's feeling like he needs to go back to bed.</p><p>"I-it hurts you. When I touch you, or you touch me."</p><p>Sam's voice is low. Dean opens his mouth, lifts his hands, but there's pretty much no way he can deny it at this point, and his brain's too fried to come up with a lie Sam wouldn't see through faster than Plexiglass. So he just drops his hands again and offers a tired, "Yeah."</p><p>Sam looks at him. Dean can't meet his eyes. But he sees Sam fire off a snappy little nod after a second, like he's just realized something, and then he shifts into gear.</p><p>"Okay. So...you got whammied." Sam starts to pace. "Are there any other symptoms? How long's it been going on?"</p><p>Dean makes himself shake his head. "I don't...I really don't think it's a curse, Sammy."</p><p>"So - Occam's Razor, then. Michael." Sam stops, spreads his hands. "He did something to you, or he is doing something, even where you've got him on ice."</p><p>"Yeah, he really could be making it worse," Dean admits, because that meshes.</p><p>"If he's doing this, he could do other stuff." Sam seems to be talking to himself, the way he does when he really gets going. "We're gonna figure this out. I'll let Jack and Cas know, and everybody else, this is priority number one, but right now, we really oughta get you in a - "</p><p>He stops all of a sudden. And now Sam's looking at Dean again. "Wait. What d'you mean, making it <em>worse</em>?"</p><p>"I don't know, man, just…"</p><p>"How long has this been happening?" Sam half-demands. Dean lets his head fall back, studying the low ceiling.</p><p>"I don't know. A while."</p><p>"You can't tell me you didn't notice when it started." Sam's in that incredulous, indignant spot he always finds right before he starts getting pissed at Dean. "How long, Dean? And how come you didn't tell me?"</p><p>"Didn't really occur to me."</p><p>"What?"</p><p>"It's…" Fuck, there's really no way out of this, is there? Dean's teeth are already aching from the half-lies, so he gives up. "It's kind of a normal thing for me. Not a big deal."</p><p>And now Sam's angry. "What the hell're you talking about?"</p><p>"Well, for…" Dean takes a second to consider. "...pretty much my entire life, it's kinda hurt when I did something bad."</p><p>"...something bad." Sam looks stricken, and Dean knows he's thinking about the two of them. What they've got. Dean shakes his head.</p><p>"I don't decide what causes it," he tells Sam earnestly. "Sam, I never regretted a second of - "</p><p>He goes automatically to grab Sam but this time, it's Sam who pulls away from him, a hollow, wounded look in his eyes. Dean stops talking.</p><p>He's seen this expression before. When he told Sam Dad told him to kill him if he needed to. When he told Sam he did remember what happened in Hell. When he told Sam about the time he spent with his soulless meatsuit. It's Sam's "Dean's hurting and didn't tell me so I couldn't help with it and that's my fault" face, and it guts Dean every damn time.</p><p>He has a nasty, involuntary thought about how funny it is that Sam, of all people, gets so damn sore about lying to each other and trust and all that. The vindictiveness of it seeds a migraine. Dean's vision starts to swim, a shattering around the edges that looks like light on rippling water.</p><p>"It's fine," Dean tells Sam, and hopes he'll buy it or at least leave it if he makes his voice firm enough. "I dealt with it for ages, and I'm gonna learn to deal with it again. Having an archangel sewn up in here with me's just ratcheting it up."</p><p>"You've been dealing with it," Sam repeats quietly.</p><p>"It's fine," Dean says again. "I just gotta get used to it."</p><p>"Oh. Okay." Sam smirks, but it's a pained expression. "You just gotta get used to it, huh?"</p><p>Dean thinks about telling him he needs to crack open one of his books and dig up a new rhetorical tack, because the parrot routine's getting old. The migraine immediately worsens and nausea saws sharp from his throat to his stomach, pain settling in a throbbing mosaic down his back and arms.</p><p>"Don't you want to fix it?" Sam asks him, almost desperately.</p><p>"I don't think there is any 'fixing it.'" Dean throws his arms wide. "This is just how it is."</p><p>Sam just stares at him. Eyes a little wet, forehead furrowed, mouth twisted. He looks like he's caught halfway between a sob and a scream, the way he used to look years ago when he and Dean were arguing about Dean's deal, or the Mark of Cain, or suicide-bombing Amara. It wraps Dean's heart in barbed wire and cracks his sternum in half, and he has to touch him right now or he'll die. He doesn't care how much it hurts.</p><p>"Sammy," Dean starts pleadingly, taking a step forward, "it's okay, hon - "</p><p>Sam jerks himself out of Dean's path so hard he smacks into the fridge, ungainly as his teenage self for a second.</p><p>"Don't touch me," he says quietly, and leaves.</p><p>Dean stands there for a second. The overhead lights are claws in his eyes, his brain. He goes after Sam, but finds his room locked. Because neither of them's brought up the third room they used to share, not since he got back.</p><p>Dean honestly can't even fathom the idea of knocking. Not right now, not when he knows it wouldn't do any good anyway. He staggers half-blind back to his room and collapses into bed before the migraine takes him down in the hallway.</p><hr/><p>Dean's sleeping too much and he knows it. There are unnatural cramps in his muscles when he wakes up, same as there always are when he gets more than, say, four or five hours. <em>Sloth's a sin,</em> he thinks wryly to himself. <em>One of the Big Seven, even.</em></p><p>The pain's like a load of bricks on his shoulders, double what it used to be, and he's got an unconscious back straining against Michael's door to keep him down, but he can't keep doing this. Gotta get used to it, like he told Sam, so he can get back to normal. Be useful. Touch his brother.</p><p>Dean leaves his room, warily checking the hall and listening out for other people, but it seems like most of them are clustered in the library, which is a relief. He's not in the mood to make new friends. He gets to the kitchen with the need for coffee and bacon blaring loud in his head, and finds Sam and Castiel waiting for him.</p><p>Dean stops, holding himself still and cautious as he looks back and forth at the two of them. He's been to a few interventions in his time and that's what this has the slimy, unpleasant feel of, made actually worse by the fact Jack isn't present. He forces a smile.</p><p>"You two suck at surprise parties."</p><p>Neither of them cracks a smile. Sam looks taut and drained, dark circles under his eyes and hair greasy, and Castiel looks exhausted. He glances at Sam.</p><p>"You're right," he tells him quietly. "I can see it now. I'm...sorry I didn't before." He turns to examine Dean. "Someone with a light touch must have put it on. It's woven so deftly - "</p><p>"What the hell're you talking about?" Dean demands, just like Sam last night.</p><p>"Go on," Sam instructs Castiel. "Tell him what you told me."</p><p>Castiel sighs through his nose, eyes closing briefly. Then he opens them again, and looks at Dean, who stares back with no idea what he ought to be feeling right now.</p><p>"You're already aware that we - Heaven - knew you and Sam would be the true vessels of Michael and Lucifer," Castiel begins. He sounds like a teacher giving a recap of last week's lesson. "In fact, we orchestrated your births."</p><p>"Yeah, I know that," Dean snaps back. "What's that gotta do with whatever the hell this is?" He gestures to the three of them.</p><p>"It has to do with the pain you feel," Castiel states. "That you've always felt. You were always meant to break the First Seal, the Righteous Man shedding blood in Hell."</p><p>Sawblades pinwheel down Dean's spine at the memory.</p><p>"But there were certain factions that weren't convinced you could be trusted to remain...well, righteous on your own, through childhood, adolescence, and maturity. They pointed out how many sins and temptations were available to humanity at every age." Castiel studies Dean helplessly. "So a device was proposed."</p><p>"A device?" Dean repeats. "What d'you mean, a 'device?' Last I checked, I'm not wearing a bomb vest."</p><p>"It was a magical device," Castiel corrects him, a little dryly. "One powered by the soul itself. It would have worked much like a shock collar on a dog does."</p><p>Dean just stares, so Castiel elaborates.</p><p>"Every time you did something wrong, then...zap." He snaps his fingers demonstratively.</p><p>"I think we get it, Cas," Sam says quietly.</p><p>"I'm sorry." Castiel slowly shakes his head. "It was never supposed to be implemented. It was...barbaric. The idea got left in the cutting room."</p><p>Dean doesn't bother telling him the expression's a little off. "Oh, and everything else you guys did to us wasn't 'barbaric?'"</p><p>"Not like this," Castiel answers grimly. "There wouldn't have been any nuance to it." He stops. "There <em>isn't </em>any nuance to it. It's programmed with right and wrong as an angel who would have rarely left Heaven understands it, no human morality whatsoever. Of course it would discharge at incest, and the touch of a creature like Sam, which is particularly cruel, considering that the two of you were written to be…" He trails off, shaking his head. "Never mind. It doesn't matter. But - I'm so sorry, Dean. Someone must have disobeyed direct orders, put it on you anyway. I can't even begin to imagine the agony you've been in for so much of your life, the sheer strength it's taken to - "</p><p>"But he can take it off." Sam cuts in like he can't hold it back anymore.</p><p>Dean looks at Castiel. Castiel doesn't say anything.</p><p>"He can take it off," Sam repeats then, a little more desperately, "You <em>can </em>remove it. Right, Cas?"</p><p>"I thought I could," Castiel says quietly.</p><p>He makes a slow circle around Dean, who revolves with him, resisting the urge to take a swing at him. He knows this isn't Castiel's fault. Knows he just wants to help. Dean's got to wonder if Michael's rage isn't seeping out and contaminating his water supply, because he hasn't really felt like this since the Mark.</p><p>"It's grown into him, over the years," Castiel is saying now. "His soul's absorbed it into itself. It's become a piece of him, and Michael's presence is supercharging it. It might have actually been our version of him who originally put - "</p><p>"So what would happen if you tried to pull the plug on it?" Sam demands.</p><p>"It would completely shatter your soul," Castiel tells Dean. "Not to mention kill you. Hopefully."</p><p>"Oh, yeah. 'Hopefully.'"</p><p>But Dean is wounded in a way he wasn't expecting, because he didn't realize he was hoping. That makes him mad. He's never lived without this thing, didn't even know it was a thing. Like Castiel said, it's a part of him. He already knows he can live with it, and the only issue here is that Sam found out about it and now he's beating himself up because he's fucking <em>Sam </em>and the world revolves around him and his knee-jerk bleeding heart and now Dean's got another migraine on the way for thinking that.</p><p>He knows how Sam feels about him. He knows Sam spends his days drowning in a bottomless well of empathy and kindness Dean wouldn't want to pull him out of even if he knew how to. But that's as much a part of Sam as this is Dean, and he's learned to accept it and live with it, hasn't he? Sam's pain?</p><p>"S-so, there's...<em>nothing</em> you can do?" Sam asks disbelievingly. "You can't deactivate it? Or, I don't know, reprogram it or something? Just so it hurts less? Something - "</p><p>Castiel is shaking his head through all of these questions, sad and exhausted. He quietly tells Sam, "It needs its pain. It won't accept anything less than what it was built to make Dean feel."</p><p>They both look at him. And the feeling it pumps him full of is nothing new, but god, does he ever wish they'd stop looking at him like...he doesn't even know what. A two-legged dog. A toddler with cancer. Something like that.</p><p>"It's fine," Dean tells the two of them, and makes himself smile. From their expressions, it doesn't come out like he wants it to. "I'm fine. You don't need to freak out about this, okay? So what, there's no cure, there's no fix, story of my life. This ain't new for us, for me. I've been handling it this whole time, and I'm gonna keep on handling it. Doesn't even bother me anymore."</p><p>Sam's got a look on his face. All tight and strained and long-suffering, like a saint going through his agonies, because that's what dealing with Dean is for him, just a lifelong martyrdom. Dean's been seething since they got started. Now he boils over.</p><p>"It's <em>my </em>problem," he snaps at Sam and Castiel. "Always has been. And I'm gonna keep on dealing with it the way I have my whole life, and you can both just forget you ever found out about it, because it's got nothing to do with either of you. <em>Nothing.</em>" He snaps his hands into fists. His organs are slowly boiling. "Anybody brings it up again, I'm gonna start cutting off body parts."</p><p>He waits, but neither of them say anything. They just keep on looking at him with all that useless pity he neither needs or wants. So Dean just shakes his head and leaves, before he does or says something he'll really regret.</p><p>He doesn't even want bacon anymore.</p><hr/><p>Dean keeps to his room for the next few days, because that's been working well for him since Michael let him go. He watches horror movies, binges on junk food and ignores the way gluttony's always put bleeding thorns in his stomach. For the most part, everybody leaves him alone.</p><p>Jack visits. They talk. He seems to be doing as okay as he can be, considering...well, everything. Either Castiel and Sam didn't tell him about Dean's Invisible Fence or he just doesn't want to discuss it, because it doesn't come up once.</p><p>Castiel tries to make up for that, finding Dean once a day in the kitchen for close to a week. Dean cold-shoulders him until he finally gives up, leaving with a heavy sigh and a quiet apology.</p><p>Sam? He actively goes out of his way to avoid Dean.</p><p>Dean knows he's doing it because he's trying not to hurt him. Might think even an accidental brush would mess him up when, in reality, it wouldn't be any worse than a bee sting. His heart's probably in the right place and all, but it feels like Dean's being punished. He doesn't even know what for. Not telling Sam sooner? Feeling pain when Sam touches him? Having this thing inside him at all?</p><p>Dean can get plenty petty himself. He doesn't even try to go after Sam, and pretends like having him around doesn't hurt worse than being touched by him. That it doesn't make him hyper aware of Michael throbbing inside him like a second, putrid heartbeat.</p><p>One day, about two and a half weeks since the half-assed little intervention Sam and Castiel threw him, Dean comes back from a beer run to find Sam in his room. He's shocked enough by that he doesn't notice anything else at first.</p><p>"The door was locked," Dean tells Sam.</p><p>"Has that ever been more than a five-minute obstacle for either of us?"</p><p>Dean shrugs. He's got a point. Then he realizes Sam cleaned up all his garbage, which makes him both annoyed and grateful. Sam coming in here and OCDing all over his space is obnoxious but feels so normal. And then, after that, he sees the bed, and everything that's been laid out on it.</p><p>Dean's been around the block a few times. He's not virgin vanilla, but he wouldn't classify himself as hardcore by any means, either. Still, he's spent enough time on the scene to recognize most of what he's looking at. A flogger - no, two. Riding crop. Paddle, handcuffs, ball gag, blindfold, collar, nylon rope…</p><p>Dean just stares for a second. Most of the stuff looks brand-new, and he doesn't even know where Sam found it. Not like they've got a well-stocked sex shop in Lebanon or anything, they've barely got a grocery store. Then he looks at Sam.</p><p>"Jesus <em>Christ</em>, Sammy, at least ask me if I wanna see your pleasure room first."</p><p>Sam doesn't rise to the bait. "What d'you know about BDSM?"</p><p>"I read <em>Fifty Shades,</em>" Dean says with an automatic grin.</p><p>"No, you didn't."</p><p>"Nah, I didn't," Dean agrees. He looks at all the stuff again, then shrugs. "Some people like being tied up and hit. Maybe 'cause it doesn't happen to them all that often. For the two of us, that's just a Tuesday." He'd be in trouble if he popped a stiffy every time something tied him to a chair.</p><p>"What do you know about the psychological aspect?" Sam sits down in front of all his kinky little treasures.</p><p>"The...pain makes you feel good," Dean says slowly, not really sure what Sam wants from him here. "It releases endorphins or whatever."</p><p>"Well, yeah," Sam allows, "but it's not just about the pain. It's about...completion, fulfillment...for some people, it's even about penance."</p><p>There's a short pause, during which Dean figures out what's going on. He shakes his head.</p><p>"This ain't gonna work, Sammy," he states. "You're wasting your time."</p><p>"Cas told us it needs pain - "</p><p>"<em>It </em>makes the pain," Dean interrupts, smacking his own chest. "Slapping me in a pair of cuffs and whipping me isn't gonna do jack shit."</p><p>"You don't know that."</p><p>"I kinda do. Getting hurt on hunts and stuff's never helped me out."</p><p>"Well, maybe that's 'cause it wasn't framed right." Sam spreads his hands. "This thing, it's buried in you. It's a part of you, like Cas said, like you said. It feeds off you. Maybe you can, I don't know, control what it gets, or something like that."</p><p>"I really doubt that."</p><p>"Have you ever tried before?"</p><p>"No, 'cause there's no point. It doesn't bother me."</p><p>"The first time we kissed," Sam says, deliberately, "you threw up."</p><p>Dean looks away, rubbing at the back of his neck. "Just had to get used to it. Don't do that anymore. When's the last time I spooked you like that?"</p><p>"The last time we touched, you looked like you were gonna stroke out on me."</p><p>"Gotta get used to it again. Promise, things'll go back to normal."</p><p>"Why's that the only option?" Sam shakes his head. "We can try something else. There's so much we could do, there's always so much, and you just. You don't even wanna try."</p><p>"You might, but I don't need to," Dean replies.</p><p>"You don't need to stop hurting? You don't even want to."</p><p>"Nope. Put up with it just fine this long, haven't I?"</p><p>Sam eyes him like he's got a real bone to pick with that statement. "I just wanna help you, Dean."</p><p>"I don't want your help!"</p><p>There's another pause, and Dean blows out a breath, rubbing his hands up over his face and into his hair. There's a stress headache like zipties fastened around his brain throbbing all the way down into the small of his back.</p><p>"I'm sorry," he says quietly. "Look, Sammy, if you're into this, then I'll do this for - "</p><p>"It's not about <em>me</em>!" Sam all but shouts, and it's like a dam's burst inside him, frustration washing into his voice with a roar as he bursts to his feet.</p><p>Dean's shocked into a couple seconds of silence. Sam takes full advantage, talking with the kind of angry intensity Dean's come to expect from him when there's a life on the line. Especially Dean's.</p><p>"What I really want, Dean, is for you to lay me out on this bed and beat me black and blue and bloody, for what I've been doing to you all these years without ever even realizing it, when it was so damn obvious. For making you suffer in silence. For never <em>noticing.</em>" He swallows. "I was just too goddamn focused on myself when you were the person taking care of me, keeping me alive. A-and I thought I'd gotten better about that, but obviously not better enough, because I still didn't…"</p><p>When he trails off, Dean quietly tells him, "You didn't know what to look for. I hid it. Been hiding it my whole life."</p><p>"Anything," Sam replies rawly. "I could've looked for anything. Because you aren't as good at hiding things as you think - I just suck at picking up on everything you're broadcasting." His eyes are wet. "Because you've always been a given, and it never even occurred to me that something like this could be going on with you."</p><p>"You didn't have to," Dean points out.</p><p>"What I had to do was pay more attention. Then maybe you wouldn't have had to carry this around for forty years." Sam shakes his head, looking around, chewing hard on the inside of his mouth before he comes back to Dean. "I want you to make me pay for it. All of it. But that would only make me feel better. Not you. It'd probably make things worse for you, actually, and I don't want that because it's not...about...me."</p><p>Sam closes his eyes, taking a deep breath. It's a couple seconds before he continues.</p><p>"I wanna help you," he tells Dean softly. "I know what it feels like, what it is, to <em>need</em> pain." He's holding his hands together. When Dean looks at them, he sees the thumb of one pressing into the horseshoe-shaped scar on the palm of the other, still ugly and raised even years later because of all the time he spent messing with it. "And if I'm gonna hurt you, I wanna do it in a way we can both control. In a way that might help. That you might even like. Can you...can you let me try it?"</p><p>Dean looks at him. A "yes" is on the tip of his tongue when Sam tells him, "Don't say yes for me. If you really wanna do this, do it for you."</p><p>Dean wants to make a crack about Sam sending mixed messages. Because he is, just a little. But Sam's so taut already he looks like one wiseass comment will literally break his spine, so Dean takes a step back from the whole thing and considers. Before he knows it, his answer's coming up out of him.</p><p>"Yeah," Dean says. "Yeah, okay. Let's try it."</p><p>"Because <em>you </em>want to," Sam clarifies.</p><p>"Yeah." And Dean means it.</p><p>Sam seems to know that. It loosens him up some, at least makes it look like he's not going to drop dead of a coronary at any second. He rolls his shoulders and lets out a loud little burst of breath, half-bouncing on the balls of his feet. He does the same thing when he's gearing up for something big on a hunt.</p><p>"So you wanna do it now?" Sam meets Dean's eyes. "Or you wanna wait?"</p><p>"Wait," Dean replies, and sandpaper tears its slow way up his arms, because he can tell Sam's raring to go right now.</p><p>Sam studies him, then states, "It hurt you to say that."</p><p>"Yeah," Dean agrees, "but only a little."</p><p>That doesn't seem to make it better for Sam. "When d'you wanna do this?"</p><p>"Tonight."</p><p>Sam nods. Then he picks up his stuff, packing it all into a black duffel Dean's never seen before, and leaves.</p><hr/><p>Sam doesn't come back until late, way after the rest of the bunker's gone completely quiet. There's only the whirring of the machinery that keeps the lights on and the air flowing, which Dean tuned and updated with his own hands. He's been wondering lately if it can handle this many people, but it seems to be doing fine. It was built for more.</p><p>He's started thinking Sam's not coming when there's a knock on the door. Dean opens it, weirdly excited. And then a little disappointed as he looks Sam up and down. Boots, jeans, T-shirt. Don't get him wrong, he's real interested in how tight the shirt is, cotton outlining every muscle Sam's got, but…</p><p>"Where's the mask and heels?" he asks. Sam rolls his eyes and shoves past him, duffel on his shoulder, even as Dean grins and asks, "Where's the leather?"</p><p>He waits until Sam's stopped next to his bed, slung off the bag, before he clears his throat and asks, "So...how's this gonna work, exactly? Like, my room, your room, the other room…" The one where they slept and fucked and hung out together pre-Michael, because god knew this place had plenty of rooms.</p><p>"We're gonna stay here," Sam tells him, and unzips the bag. "I want you totally comfortable for this."</p><p>Dean nods, then swings his arms and looks awkwardly around the room. He's got no idea what to do with his hands, is thinking maybe he should've brushed his hair. Or showered. He showered this morning, but maybe he should've done it again tonight?</p><p>"How - " He stops, clears his throat. "How d'you wanna do this? You gonna blindfold me, gag me? Tie me up?"</p><p>Sam shakes his head. "I brought the stuff to do all that, and I will if I need to, but. I'd kinda like to keep restraint out of it if I can. We've both been tied up enough. Like you said…" He gives Dean a dry glance. "Tuesday."</p><p>Dean half-shrugs his agreement. A second later, he asks, "What about a safeword?"</p><p>"Well…" Sam turns to face him. He's winding some kind of black tape around his big, callused hands, looping palm and thumb. "You have one of those, I mean usually, so you can do as much begging and pleading and crying as you want without the other person actually stopping, because that's part of it. I don't think we need one." He pauses. "Unless you want one."</p><p>Dean feels weird and stupid saying it. But he says it anyway. "Better have one." He coughs. "Just in case."</p><p>Sam doesn't even look surprised. "How 'bout 'Poughkeepsie?'"</p><p>Dean just nods, mutely. Then he stands there and watches Sam. A second later, he starts, awkwardly, "Guess I oughta…"</p><p>"It's okay." Sam gently cuts him off. "I got this. I'll tell you what to do and all you gotta do is do it, all right?"</p><p>That eases something in Dean he wasn't expecting. He nods again.</p><p>"Strip," Sam orders, and Dean does, taking himself slowly down to his birthday suit with Sam's eyes on him the whole time. Knowing he's getting naked for his brother sits on his skin like a sunburn. His cock's already starting to fill, and there's an ache in the pit of his stomach from that. Sam either sees it or expects it, because he asks, "Is this hurting you? Right now?"</p><p>Dean hesitates, but he's told Sam all he needs to know just by doing that, so he admits, "Yeah."</p><p>"D'you like taking off your clothes in front of me?" Sam's voice is soft, not much emotion in it. "D'you like me seeing you like this?"</p><p>"Yeah."</p><p>"We can start, then." Sam nods. "If you're ready."</p><p>Dean's still got on everything below his waist, but he's fine with that if Sam is, so he nods. "Hit me." He grins a little. "Literally."</p><p>Sam's mouth quirks at that, and he pulls one of the floggers Dean saw earlier out of that magic bag of his. Dean thinks it might be made of suede. He'd have to touch it to be sure, but it's definitely softer than leather, and the tails are loops rather than strips. Sam rolls it in his hand like he's getting used to the weight of it, and the loops shiver, sliding against each other as Dean stares.</p><p>"You know what this is?" Sam asks.</p><p>"This ain't my first rodeo, Sammy," Dean replies. It's just he was Christian before, ages ago, when he was experimenting with all things kinky and the idea of not being able to trust himself not to go too far didn't even cross his mind. Not Ana.</p><p>"Turn around." Dean does. "I'm gonna hit you. I'll keep it across the shoulders; not gonna go any lower 'cause I don't wanna catch your kidneys. Go ahead and grab the dresser if you need to. And safeword the second you don't wanna do it anymore, okay?"</p><p>"Still not my first rodeo," Dean reminds him dryly, turning back around.</p><p>"I mean it, Dean." Sam's not kidding around. "Don't hold out just 'cause you think I want it. I need you to promise me that you'll make me stop if you need me to."</p><p>"Okay."</p><p>"Do you promise?"</p><p>"Yeah, okay, I promise. Jeez."</p><p>Sam doesn't look super satisfied, but he's got to know that's the best he's going to get. "Then turn back around."</p><p>Dean does, staring at the dresser once he's facing it, looking at the lamp and the mirror he recently put face-down. Something about the authority in Sam's voice is really doing it for him, and that sends a worm of pain burrowing up through his guts, chiming off every rib as it goes higher, draping itself along his collarbone…</p><p>Then Sam hits him.</p><p>It's lightning through Dean's entire body, unknitting the pain with shock and sensation. He gasps, reels. He doesn't even know where the blow landed until the tingling of the skin right across his shoulders makes it into the white static of his brain.</p><p>He's been hit before but this is. This is something else. Even though it doesn't really hurt, no actual weight or bite to the loops, nothing to rock him on his feet. He looks over his shoulder and sees Sam just standing there, flogger in hand, like he's waiting for a reaction.</p><p>"Harder." Dean's surprised by how husky his voice comes out. Like he's already had Sam's cock down his throat...and of course just thinking that lances his mouth with pain like a jawful of impacted cavities. He clears his throat, then explains, "Saw a leather one this afternoon. You wanna pull that outta your bag of goodies?"</p><p>"I'm gonna give you a few more strokes with this one." Sam's tone is a special kind of firm as he lifts the suede flogger. "Just to let you get used to it. Then we can move on to the leather one, if you still want it."</p><p>Dean still wants to argue, Sam's dom-voice or whatever be damned, but something about the way that Sam's looking at him makes the words die in his throat. So he nods, and something smooths over for him as he faces forward again and waits. Like a hand running over velvet, brushing the nap soft again.</p><p>The loops whisk over Dean's upper back again. He can tell Sam was holding back on that first stroke, testing him, and he's glad he's giving him his full strength now. It's like a firework bursting, bright and red, in his skin.</p><p>Dean stands with his head bowed and his hands clenched automatically into fists, a pose he falls naturally into without thinking. He pants. His eyes stay open, but they glaze over, the dresser blurring in front of him as Sam works his back until he's not seeing anything at all. The loops lash from the base of Dean's neck to the fanning tails of his ribs in half a dozen quick, merciless strokes.</p><p>Dean forgets it's his brother doing this for him. He forgets he's hard. He forgets Michael, hunting, Heaven and Hell, Mom, Dad, Castiel, Jack, the strangers in the bunker, the bunker itself...everything. It's just the rhythm of the flogger meeting his skin. When the next blow doesn't come, it feels like waking up. Not in a nice way, either.</p><p>"Turn around," Sam instructs.</p><p>Dean does. He sees Sam. The collar of his shirt's looking damp, his stomach, his pits. Those insane pectorals heave as he breathes hard. He's blushing, probably just from exertion, cheekbones and the bridge of his nose and the tip of it, too, all pink. A couple hairs are stuck moistly to his temple. After not seeing anything for the past - what? Five minutes? He practically looks, to Dean, like he's glowing.</p><p>"Take off your boots," Sam says roughly, nodding to them. "Socks too, and jeans."</p><p>Dean does. His back feels hot and tender as he moves, a little raw. Like he's just scratched the living hell out of himself in pursuit of an itch he should've just left alone, rutting against brick walls and carpet until the first layer of skin's gone. It's new pain. But the old kind starts to creep back in as he strips to his Hanes for Sam.</p><p>Sam looks at him, then states, "You're hard."</p><p>"Uh huh," Dean agrees huskily. There are icy teeth on his dick and balls that do nothing at all to bring down his throbbing boner.</p><p>"It hurts for you to be hard in front of me." Sam swallows. "Because of me."</p><p>Dean just nods, mutely. His throat's full of ground glass for hurting Sam like this.</p><p>"Turn back around."</p><p>Dean obeys again. He hears Sam take his shirt off, and then rummage in his duffel bag. Dean glances back over his shoulder without thinking. Sternly, Sam tells him, "Face forward," and Dean does, closing his eyes this time. After a long, long time, during which the marrow of his long bones freezes up and puts jagged ice crystals in his blood, pain slowly spreading, Sam asks, "Ready?"</p><p>"Yeah." Dean's been ready for this his whole life. He just didn't know it.</p><p>There's a wait of a long few seconds. Too long. Dean's just about to glance over his shoulder again and ask what the holdup is when the blow finally comes.</p><p>This time, the first one lands on his ass, shocking a cry that's only barely high-pitched and still super manly out of him. He barely hears it. The ends of the tails bite into the flesh of his thighs, below his boxers, like barbs. The ice is gone. Not melted. It's like it was never there. Dean's eyes are open and he sees nothing, thinks nothing, but everything inside of him is so sharp and clear and it doesn't <em>hurt.</em></p><p>It isn't until a few seconds after the hit that his mind starts fading back in, and he realizes that Sam must be using the leather flogger. The one he asked him to.</p><p>"How was that?" Sam asks. Dean answers in a low rumble.</p><p>"I want more."</p><p>He hears Sam gear up. He takes a deep breath, and fabric moves as he adjusts his stance, free-hanging leather <em>shff</em>ing through the air. Dean waits patiently, hands in fists and head bowed again, because there's something about this position that just feels right.</p><p>Sam strikes his back, high again. The impact of those heavy, burning tails on abused skin that was just getting used to not getting hit again makes Dean want to scream, but it fades away quick as it comes, falling down hard inside him to tear loose tension in the very core of him. Then it's his ass again. That does less for him than it does the first time, fat and thin fabric to cushion the blow. Then it's his thighs, striped welts singing across the backs, and the balanced blankness of earlier comes fully back, Dean sinking into it like some kind of ice bath after a beating.</p><p>Sam stops again. Dean's seriously gonna deck him if he keeps fucking doing that.</p><p>"Underwear," Sam orders, and Dean yanks them off so fast he breaks the waistband and almost falls over. Good thing he catches himself at the last second, because he probably would have knocked himself out on the dresser. Soon as he's standing fully naked in his room, cool underground air pressing heavy on his stinging skin, Sam goes for it. And Dean understands he was still holding back.</p><p>Sam doesn't stop. Doesn't pause or take a break. Dean loses count of the blows, not that he ever meant to keep track, as Sam lays a hundred burning constellations across his shoulders and ass and legs. A tail occasionally lashes around to lash a nipple or hipbone. Dean's cock weeps and his balls throb. He has to hold onto the dresser to stay on his feet, finally, and Sam keeps him in the static, that perfect pale blankness, and later, Dean will get why Sam's all into exercise as meditation and centering himself and all that. If it makes him feel like this.</p><p>Dean has no idea how long it takes him to realize, when Sam finally does stop. He comes back to himself slowly. He's still only about halfway there when Sam touches his shoulder. It's a part he didn't whip, so it's not sore, but Dean flinches automatically at the touch. Sam holds firm, and Dean looks at him as he finally starts feeling like he fits inside his body again.</p><p>Sam's studying him, expression unreadable. After a second, he points out, "You're crying."</p><p>Dean blinks. His eyes didn't fall closed his time, and sure enough, salt's already starting to dry tight on his clumped eyelashes and cheeks.</p><p>"You didn't safeword," Sam says, a question in it.</p><p>"Didn't need to," Dean rasps, and Sam just nods.</p><p>Sam helps him straighten up, and leads him over to the bed. Dean waits as Sam lays out thick towels that look brand-new, then Sam guides him down onto his stomach. Dean spreads out, arms above his head, holding onto the edge of the mattress as he buries his face in the pillow. His back sparks, twitches, smolders, and he realizes he's shaking a little.</p><p>He can feel Sam above him, looking down. Sam puts a big hand on Dean's head, stroking through the hair Michael grew out and Dean hasn't bothered to cut. Just stroking. It's nice. Even with the tape on his hand. Dean shocks himself with a sob, not sure why he's crying when it feels so good.</p><p>"Does this hurt?" Sam asks softly. "Me touching you like this?"</p><p>And Dean figures out why he's crying. Because this is the first time since they were kids that Sam touching him has hurt so little. He doesn't say anything, but Sam seems to know the answer anyway.</p><p>"You didn't do anything wrong." Sam sits down on the mattress. Dean can feel his hip, covered in denim, against his ribs. He keeps petting. Dean breathes raggedly. After a while, Sam asks, "Would it be better if you were cuffed?"</p><p>"Iono," Dean mumbles.</p><p>"Let's try it."</p><p>Sam gets up. He digs through his duffel. He comes back, winds Dean's wrists in something that feels like leather, binding him to the frame of the bed, and Dean's hands almost automatically relax where they were clutching at the sheets. When Sam slips a blindfold over his eyes next, it's unexpected, but it doesn't bother Dean the way it would in literally any other situation.</p><p>He's held. He's bound. He's floating in the darkness and there's nothing but the grounding rawness of his back and the touch and smell and warmth of his brother, here with him.</p><p>Sam sits back down and goes back to petting Dean, and it's still nice, maybe the nicest thing ever, even as achy electric eel shocks start to take root from Sam's fingers. Dean thinks maybe he's crying again but the blindfold makes it difficult to be sure.</p><p>"Tell me as soon as it starts to hurt again," Sam instructs softly. When Dean doesn't say anything, he asks, with concern in his voice, "Is it hurting already?"</p><p>"So little," Dean mumbles, nothing but terrycloth against his lips. "Might as well be nothing at all."</p><p>"Dean." Sam sounds almost sad. "I need you to be honest with me for this to work."</p><p>Dean doesn't answer. The touch and the pain have him leaking pre into the bedcovers. He has icy needles in his scalp, marking out Sam's touches like pins on a map, but like he said. It's so little. It's worse when Sam stops stroking him, then pulls away completely.</p><p>Dean whines before he can stop himself, something sulky and childish deep in his throat, then tries to get up. The handcuffs stop him and for a second, less than a second, just a tiny chip of time with edges like broken glass, he's panicking at being tied down. Then Sam touches his back.</p><p>Dean can picture it, where he's got his hand. A crosshatch of long, thin welts, yellow-white in the center and red on the edges, marks laid into him by the flogging. Maybe a little blood. It's all too layered for him to tell if the skin's split or torn anywhere. Sam's body heat is like a scalding shower on a sunburn, almost nauseating, the whorls of his calluses catching on skin gone sensitive with the swelling of a wound. It's all Dean can focus on. He finds himself laying flat again as Sam feels out all of his welts and scrapes and marks, reminding Dean of them, drawing him a map of himself and the pain Sam gave him in his mind. Dean pants into the pillow.</p><p>"Bleeding?" Dean rasps, because he really is curious.</p><p>"I didn't hit you hard enough for that," Sam responds. They're both whispering.</p><p>"Could've." Dean nuzzles into the crook of his own elbow. "Didn't gotta buy all that fancy crap. Could've just used a belt."</p><p>"Well, when I was looking around online, flogger seemed like the better option," Sam replies. "Little harder to control 'cause of all the tails, but it spreads the impact out more, so there's less chance of somebody getting really hurt even if the swing goes wide. Most people seemed to agree it makes for a better sensation, but...we can try a belt, next time. If you really wanna."</p><p>Dean can't stop himself from snorting. Because of course Sam, of all people, would research this to death before he even thought about getting started. Dean's so focused on the idea of Sam reading academic essays and trawling forums that it takes "next time" a little bit to process. He wants to ask about it when it does, but then Sam touches a particularly tender spot on his ass, and the pain wipes his mind clear as a chalkboard after an eraser swipe. Just bright eddies and smears on a flat dark background as Sam touches every single mark and weal. Almost like he's counting them.</p><p>Sam finally reaches down to where Dean's balls are resting between his legs, and strokes them lightly. Dean twitches. Sam picks them up, fondles them, sack resting gentle in his hand.</p><p>"That hurt?" he asks.</p><p>"No," Dean breathes, because if it does, it's lost in that different kind of pain. The off-heartbeat throb of his back and ass and legs. He waits until an icy, unnatural ache circles the root of his pounding dick to tell Sam, "Starting to now." Because he asked him to be honest. Told him to be.</p><p>"Thanks for telling me," Sam says softly, and his hand goes back up to Dean's scalp, fingers running through his hair. "That was good, Dean."</p><p>And then he's gone, not touching, standing up and walking away. The lack of contact has Dean practically shaking. He focuses on his back.</p><p>He hears Sam rummaging. Unzipping. Tearing plastic and cardboard. Then a snapping sound that reminds Dean of -</p><p>The thought breaks clean in half, the end of it spinning off into nowhere, when something that feels like dry ice settles high on his shoulder. Right on a cluster of lash marks. Dean gasps, but can't make himself suck in air, lungs paralyzed. It's practically sent him into shock, this temperature against skin that feels like it's baking itself.</p><p>"That's an instant ice pack," Sam tells Dean matter-of-factly. There's another <em>snap</em>, and he lays another pack on Dean's other shoulder. "Got a first aid kit in the duffel. Big one, everything I read said it's better to have it. These'll help with the swelling, and the pain."</p><p>He doesn't say it, but Dean knows that they both know that this is gonna hurt like a bitch before it starts helping. And that's a big part of why Sam's doing it.</p><p>It feels so big as Sam layers ice packs neatly across every single part of Dean he flogged, a physical weight bearing down on him that has nothing to do with the few stiff ounces of each pack. The cold and pain fill Dean's mind to the point it blocks out all real thoughts. There's no room for him to do anything but shudder and breathe hard...and of course his boner isn't going anywhere at all.</p><p>The packs curve to his shoulders, his ass, the backs of his thighs. The sparse cottony scrim over the plastic keeps them from freezing to the raw skin, but doesn't do a damn thing to insulate him from the cold. The only place that isn't freezing and burning at the same time is the small of his back, which Sam went so far out of his way to avoid hitting. Dean pants, and trembles, but he doesn't move. The handcuffs help him stay put.</p><p>The sound and smell of a match striking must make it in, because Dean will remember them later. They don't mean anything to him right now. Neither does a warm smell that reminds him vaguely of seances and rituals. But then something blindingly hot, a nuclear flash in his head, dribbles onto his back. Dean gasps. His entire body's stiff as a new corpse. The cuffs are still holding him in place and his eyes are so wide they hurt behind the blindfold as searing drops run in a pattern down his spine, a couple falling directly into the dimples right above his ass like Sam's mapping out his topography with this stuff.</p><p>Dean whines. Sam assures him, "It's just wax. It's not gonna burn you, it's a massage candle. But. It is gonna feel pretty intense."</p><p>Dean can't move. He can't talk. All the extremes dappling him right now have tied knots in his vocal cords, hot and cold going to war over his freshly-whipped skin as Sam practically covers his lower back in wax that cools quickly.</p><p>And Dean's hard, so hard. He'll realize later, even though he doesn't have the room for it now, that it's the first erection he's ever gotten, for Sam or anybody else, that hasn't hurt the whole time he's had it.</p><p>"This isn't a punishment," Sam tells Dean quietly, as he works. His voice is steady, calm, soothing, but it's not the one he brings out for victims or witnesses or even friends. It's...special. "You know that. Right?"</p><p>"I do," Dean whispers back, like Sam's drawn the words out of him.</p><p>"You didn't do anything wrong."</p><p>"No."</p><p>"I wanna hear you say it."</p><p>"I…"</p><p>"You didn't do anything wrong."</p><p>"I didn't…" Dean stops, swallows.</p><p>"You didn't do anything wrong, Dean. You haven't done anything wrong." The wax is pleasantly warm now, the layer of cooled stuff thick enough it just feels like a heating pad as Sam dribbles it. "Can you say that?"</p><p>"I didn't do anything wrong," Dean says into the towel-covered pillow underneath him, so tiny there's no way Sam should be able to hear him. But he must. Because he doesn't ask him to say it again.</p><p>"You don't deserve to hurt." Sam's dripping wax over all the skin that isn't covered by ice packs, including where the packs have started making the skin next to them numb, and it's like the time Dean used mouthwash and then bit into a habanero on a dare, but on his back. He breathes through it. "This is just something I'm doing for you because something bad happened to you. 'Cause I love you. I want you to know that. I-I...want you to <em>understand </em>it."</p><p>Dean's not sure when Sam starts removing the ice packs, but they've been on there for a while, because Sam fell silent ages ago and they've started going wet and sloshy. Having the weight and cold of them gone, room-temperature air on damp, wounded skin, is a whole new shock.</p><p>Sam peels the wax off his back. It's too soft to take any hair with it, but it tugs hard at their roots, and the thousand tiny stings hold Dean's attention until every last drop of wax is gone.</p><p>And now he's tingling and aching and throbbing and burning from the base of his neck all the way to the backs of his knees, lit up in his own head, nothing to him but the pounding rhythm of what Sam has done to him.</p><p>Dean doesn't feel Sam get up again, but after a while, he hears him moving around. Probably putting everything away. Sounds like he maybe strips the rest of the way, too. When he comes back, he quietly asks, "What'd it used to feel like for you? When we had sex."</p><p>"It hurt," Dean mumbles back.</p><p>Sam puts a hand on one of his ass cheeks, squeezes lightly. It's enough to bring that particular piece of skin right to the forefront of Dean's mind. It brings clarity with it. Dean realizes the tape's gone from his hand. "Describe it for me. Please."</p><p>Dean finds himself groping for words. He sucks at this even when it doesn't feel like somebody's cracked open the top of his skull and tried to use his brains to make an omelette. In the best possible way, but still an omelette.</p><p>"I don't know," he says finally. "It hurt. Knives, a hot poker, my ass, my dick…" He crushes his eyes shut behind the blindfold, even though he doesn't need to, and tries to think harder, tries to remember.</p><p>He doesn't want to tell Sam this. Doesn't want to hurt him. But he told him to be honest and Dean feels like he has to obey.</p><p>"When you fucked me," Dean grinds finally out, "it was like a piece of rebar. One that'd had a blowtorch turned on it for a few minutes, just ripping me apart inside, burning me. Your hands - my veins hurt. Your come was like fucking gasoline." He takes in a deep breath, one that stretches the skin on his back, brings an icy, fiery sting. "When I fucked you. You were like a furnace. Nuclear reactor, maybe. It was like you had spines inside you, and they were like - like shark teeth. Pointing back so that I tore my dick to shreds. And coming felt like I had my balls in a deep fryer."</p><p>"Is that the worst pain you've ever felt?" Sam asks, after a long pause. When Dean doesn't say anything, Sam squeezes his ass again, patiently. "Dean."</p><p>"Maybe," Dean replies hoarsely. "Maybe. Sometimes yes. Think it's tied with how it's felt every time I let you kick the bucket, though."</p><p>Sam says nothing at that. Just takes his hand back.</p><p>And Dean is terrified. Afraid in a way he's never been before, of anything. He shouldn't have told him that, shouldn't have told Sam how he's hurt him, how it felt all the hundreds or thousands of times the two of them made love, how bad it was for Dean. When he acted like it was good and it actually was good for Sam. Because now Sam is going to leave, and he'll never come back, either because he can't stand the toxic, twisted, lying little thing Dean is, or because he doesn't want to make him feel that pain again, or both. And Dean's divine shock collar just wishes it could hurt him like that.</p><p>But then he hears the click of a bottle cap. The squelch of lube. There are fingers against his asshole, but Sam doesn't even try to work him open, just uses the slickness to force his way in, pointer and middle. Dean grunts in shock and pain, but it's not even that bad, even though it's been a few months. This is just two fingers and his body's still pretty used to taking Sam's monster of a cock. His ring burns anyway, out of practice, as Sam crooks his fingers and expertly finds Dean's prostate.</p><p>When he pushes, pleasure with only the thinnest razor wire woven into it jolts through Dean's entire body. He rocks back against Sam's hand with a moan, best he can with the cuffs on.</p><p>Unexpectedly, Sam smacks the side of his ass sternly with his free hand. Dean jumps a little, more out of surprise than pain (although it definitely smarts on the edges of all those welts).</p><p>"No," Sam tells him. "I just need you to lose the erection."</p><p>It takes Dean a second to realize what he means. Then he remembers going soft pretty much every time Sam's given him a prostate massage before. Normal thing, apparently. Sure enough, he goes limp before too long, and Sam immediately pulls his fingers out, rough. Then he's fitting something restrictive, cold metal, onto Dean's cock. His balls. Dean instinctively dislikes it. It feels bad against him, around him. His erection immediately tries to rise again, the thing Sam put on him crushes it before it can even get off the ground because its shape definitely doesn't allow for hard cocks.</p><p>"Cage?" Dean guesses.</p><p>"Uh huh." More lube squirts out, a lot, practically a whole handful, and then Sam preps Dean, quick and efficient as he can. Slick globs drool down Dean's balls, the insides of his thighs. Something between his belly button and spine gets tight and excited.</p><p>Sam grabs Dean by the hips, lifts him. Dean scoots up so he's on his knees, ass in the air, head and arms still down, spine bowed uncomfortably. Burning muscles in his chest and stomach, and the scrunch of skin on his back, keeps him from thinking about the cage. He would have thought he was ten years too old for this position. He must be more flexible than he realized.</p><p>When Sam puts it in, it feels like he's splitting him in two. Dean yells. His eyes water and stream behind the blindfold. It's like a lightning strike in his head and it feels so good, so different from the pain he usually gets with sex.</p><p>"That hurt?" Sam growls. Dean nods. "Good or bad?"</p><p>"Good." Dean exhales the word. "'S not - " He wouldn't even be able to describe it if Sam wasn't inside him. "Rebar."</p><p>It must click. Sam rubs his hips, lovingly. Then he starts to move.</p><p>Sam fucks him. Hard, rough. He shakes the whole bed, grunting, and Dean is eaten whole by the sensation of it. The drag and pull of Sam against his insides, how he can feel the head of his cock where it flares, how good Sam is at hitting his prostate but how it's not enough to keep Dean's dick soft inside the strangling cage. Sam feels like he belongs inside him, even as Dean's walls stretch and burn. Sam's bigger than he remembered.</p><p>Sweat stings where it falls onto the furrows of Dean's back. Flesh smacks on flesh, Sam's hips like cattle prods against the swollen meat of Dean's ass cheeks, and Sam is breathing harsh and loud. His nails dig into Dean's skin, hands like vises on his hips. There will be bruises. Dean won't be able to sit normal for a week. Nothing's ever felt so good.</p><p>"You wanted it harder earlier." Sam's voice is sex-rough, coarse-grit sandpaper grinding across cured oak. "Still want it?"</p><p>Dean tries to say yes. The sound that actually comes out is low and needy and definitely not a word, but Sam seems to get it anyway. He gives him what he wants, battering into him with his full strength, using all the muscles that let him kick in doors and snap ropes and take heads off with one machete swing.</p><p>"You're so tight," Sam pants. "Michael didn't know what he had here, huh? Didn't use your ass at all. It's just been waiting this entire time for me to fill it back up with my cock."</p><p>Sam doesn't break out the dirty talk often, but when he does, <em>jeez. </em>The mention of Michael ought to spark something bad in Dean, ought to bring his banging to the surface. But Dean hasn't heard it this whole time.</p><p>Dean's glad for the handcuffs. For the blindfold. Pre drips out of him, between the looping bars of the cock cage, drizzles, practically, a steady stream of horny need. He shouts. There's nothing in his head but pain and pleasure and the kind of wanting he doesn't think he's ever felt before.</p><p>When Sam comes, Dean feels the gush and the pulse. There is no flaming burn. It isn't napalm blasting into his guts from a firehose. He feels it, he focuses on it, on something good and real rather than fake pain an angel coded into him when he was a baby, and it's so beautiful to be able to do that he half-yells and half-sobs into the pillow.</p><p>Sam softens inside him after pumping Dean's ass full of come. He teases himself slowly out through a tunnel of overworked flesh, and Dean feels every inch, especially when Sam's cockhead catches on his ring and he hisses. It's tender, sure. But Sam didn't tear him. Nothing flares bright and shocking at the touch of his flaccid dick.</p><p>Sam's breath heaves behind Dean as Dean's hips slip slowly down, all the way until he's laying flat again. Sam has to take a while to collect himself. Must have been a good orgasm to fry his circuits like that, considering Dean's seen him translate Sumerian script in his head right after getting a concussion. Then Sam touches Dean through the cage. Dean grunts, would pull away if he weren't feeling so well-used, and barely keeps himself from whimpering at how hard his cock absolutely wants to be.</p><p>"You didn't do anything wrong," Sam tells him yet again, and his voice is absolutely wrecked. "What we've got...it isn't a sin, Dean. The way you love me, always, no matter what. The way you take care of me. That can't be anything but good." He rubs an affectionate hand slowly up and down Dean's unmarred calf. "And I love you. So much."</p><p>Dean doesn't even get to reply before Sam's unlocking the cage and taking Dean's cock in one big, hot, rough hand. He doesn't push his hips up again, just keeps his hand underneath him as Dean pounds fast out to his full length. Sam strokes. He rubs. And the pleasure's overwhelming and unbelievable, scouring everything clean, as brilliant as a sunrise over a field of snow. The pain limns it, threads that pull taut and draw it bigger.</p><p>Dean's come before, obviously. Usually, the pleasure of a climax and the sin-pain of how he got there sort of cancel each other out, pain almost always coming out on top. But this time, though. This time, all the things he feels work together until he's coming onto the bed and Sam's hand and his own stomach, great big ropes of come pumping out, everything Dean is swept away in his own unending, world-shaking orgasm.</p><p>It feels like it tears his joints loose. Takes him completely to pieces. He screams into the pillow without fully realizing he's doing it.</p><p>Too bad Sam didn't gag him, too.</p><p>It takes Dean a long time to come back after that one. Longer than it took Sam, he thinks. Of course he can't be sure. He drifts slowly back in on a lazy tide of afterglow until he reaches his own shores, realizes Sam's above him, sitting next to him on the bed with a hand on his calf again.</p><p>"'S it always feel like that?" Dean's voice comes out sounding like he just ate a hearty bowl of campfire ashes. "For you. No hurting?"</p><p>"Oh, Dean," Sam says softly, and the heartbreak in his voice settles in Dean's own chest.</p><p>Sam lays down. He puts a very gentle arm over Dean's back, holding him, and even that much pressure hurts, but the same way Dean tends to hurt after a good but exhausting hunt. It's a satisfying pain, one he earned. He basks in the scent and feel and closeness of his brother for what feels like a very comfortable eternity. Even laying in his own wet spot, and with his oversensitive dick and nipples rubbing into the nubble of the towels.</p><p>It's still too soon when Sam pulls away from him, taking off the handcuffs and blindfold. Dean grumbles a little, squinting, but the light's dimmer than he would have thought; Sam turned off the overhead and switched to the bedside lamp at some point. Dean goes to get up, moves to roll onto his back and scoot to the edge of the mattress without even thinking. Sam, absolute hero that he is, stops him.</p><p>"You're gonna be <em>really </em>sore for a few days," Sam warns. "Really. Here, I'll help you - hands and knees, crawl."</p><p>Dean feels light and unsteady on his feet, automatically takes the water bottle Sam hands him. It's one of Sam's reusable ones, ice clinking against the aluminum. Dean thinks he'd rather have a beer, but when he takes that first sip and then finds himself chugging hard and fast enough to give himself a brain freeze, he realizes for the first time how goddamn thirsty he is. Even his eyes feel dried out.</p><p>"Careful," Sam warns. "You're probably not gonna make yourself sick, but just in case. Imagine you don't really wanna puke right now."</p><p>Dean stands there, some of his strength coming back, and makes himself drink slow. Ice chimes every time he takes a swig. His nerves feel loose and uncoiled as Sam busily wipes him down, cleaning come and lube off his lower half, then very gently sterilizing every single welt on Dean's back end with rubbing alcohol. Just like he would after a hunt, albeit a hunt where they were lucky enough to actually have access to rubbing alcohol and not just whiskey.</p><p>"That probably stings," Sam half-apologizes.</p><p>"It's okay. Kinda like it." It does something different for Dean than the flogging or the ice packs or the wax or the sex did, even though it feels good in the same way all those things did. He can't explain it and doesn't think it's worth the effort to try.</p><p>Sam finishes up around the same time Dean drains the water bottle and sets it on the nightstand. Sam comes in to kiss him, and Dean lets him, arms winding around Sam. Sam holds him back, gentle enough not to start up a new firestorm in his skin, but they aren't even together for very long before Dean breaks abruptly away with a snap of realization.</p><p>"What is it?" Sam asks him, anxious. "Shit, did that - ?"</p><p>"No," Dean interrupts, and Sam starts to relax, until Dean grabs him by the shoulders, excitement rolling through his tired body. "Sam, d'you get what I'm saying? It <em>didn't hurt. </em>You just kissed me and it didn't hurt, not at all. No burning, no poking, no stinging or aching or…" He trails off, shaking his head in wonder. "That's only the second time in my entire goddamn life that's happened."</p><p>Sam is grinning right back at him, giddy, but that last second sobers him up a little. "Wait. What was the first?"</p><p>"First time," Dean replies. "Y'know, when you were seventeen. Pretty sure it was 'cause that first kiss was innocent." Yeah, Sam had definitely still been a virgin back then. Makes Dean wonder who popped his cherry at college.</p><p>He can see it dawning on Sam's face. The realization that, every single other time they've kissed, it hurt him. Dean gives him a little shake to bring him back to the here and now.</p><p>"You're not getting it," Dean accuses. "Sammy, I'm telling you. This thing you wanted to try? It worked." He looks at his hands on Sam's bare skin. Trails down to Sam's wiry pubic hair, his damp cock, still a little swollen from sex. He thinks about having it inside him again, throat, ass, and there's nothing but the barest beat of near-arousal deep in his belly. "It...it worked. It really worked."</p><p>He hugs Sam again, and starts to laugh.</p><p>Sam's laughing, too, or almost, but he tells Dean, "Yeah, well, we're not done quite yet."</p><p>"You're not done?" Dean states incredulously, pulling back again to look at him. "Seriously? I feel great. It worked."</p><p>"Yeah, but there's a specific way this has to be done. Trust me."</p><p>And Dean does. So he eats the chocolate-covered peanuts Sam offers him, drinks a little more water. Sam swaps out the towels, which have definitely gotten pretty grody, while he's doing that. Then Dean lays down again, the over-the-moon excitement fading slowly back into a sleepy mix of post-orgasmic bliss (first time he's ever felt it, untainted) and sheer love for his brother, and Sam starts rubbing some kind of lotion or gel into all the marks he left behind. It feels awesome. Quiets the ache and the burn. Dean basks in the contact, in the comfortable silence between the two of them.</p><p>Eventually Sam starts to talk. "So, I want you to tell me what worked for you, and what didn't."</p><p>"Everything," Dean mumbles, eyes closed.</p><p>"No, I need you to be specific for me. What'd you like? Out of everything we did."</p><p>Sam's insistence makes it feel a little bit like an order, and that makes it easier for Dean to haul himself out of his shallow daze and answer.</p><p>"Flogging," he says. "That worked good. Felt good. Got and kept me hard, at least."</p><p>"Can you tell me what it did for you?"</p><p>Dean doesn't really want to, he shouldn't be able to, but somehow, he dredges it up for Sam.</p><p>"Dunno. Made it so I...didn't have to think, maybe?" He's sure that doesn't make any sense. "Like that was all I could focus on. All I was. Cleared everything else out." He tucks his unbound hands up by his face, fetal. "It was. I don't know. Quiet."</p><p>It made sense to him inside, but not coming out of his mouth. There's no way Sam will understand. But there's a note of comprehension in Sam's voice as he asks, "You still wanna try the belt next time?"</p><p><em>Next time, Christ. </em>"Yeah. Think I do."</p><p>Sam's hands slide smooth over Dean's ass. "It'd be a harder hit in one spot."</p><p>"Yeah, that," Dean agrees. "Like having it all over my body, though. Back and ass and legs and all...speaking of. You really worked me. How's your shoulder?" Sam hasn't popped that particular joint out of socket nearly as many times as Dean has, but a guy in his thirties doesn't whip somebody at full strength for half an hour without getting a little sore.</p><p>"I'm feeling it," Sam admits. "Hands aren't great, either. Even though I taped 'em and switched off."</p><p>"You got any of those ice packs left?" Dean cracks an eye. "Slap one on and pop a couple Advil. Bottle's on my nightstand."</p><p>Soon as he's done lotioning him up, Dean hears Sam rattle some pills onto his palm, snap another ice pack. When he lays down next to him, the two of them practically joined at the hip on the twin bed, Dean opens his eyes, looks at Sam. His hair is mussed and sweaty, lines of exhaustion are etched around his eyes and mouth. He shaved the beard a while back but more stubble's grown in tonight. This has worn him out. Beating the shit out of Dean and fucking him into the mattress on top of a full day of all those leaderly duties he's taken on. Dean feels guilty. His poker face must not be back online yet, because Sam hooks a pinkie loosely around one of his thumbs, a tiny touch as he softly asks him, "What else? What else was good for you?"</p><p>"Handcuffs," Dean replies. "Blindfold. Worked real well. Not sure why, though." When Sam opens his mouth, Dean adds, "Don't really wanna know why, either."</p><p>Sam closes it with a smirk. "How 'bout the wax?"</p><p>"I liked the stuff with. Y'know. The different temperatures, the extremes?" Dean wiggles his fingers even though he knows Sam can't see him. "Could take or leave the wax, though."</p><p>"Okay," Sam agrees, and Dean can all but see him taking notes behind those big hazel eyes. "Good to know."</p><p>After a second, Dean asks, "What about you? What was good and bad for you?"</p><p>"I wasn't really the point, Dean."</p><p>"Nah, I was. And I can't enjoy anything I don't know you're liking, too."</p><p>Sam huffs at that, something halfway between annoyance and a laugh. "Okay, well, I guess…" He rolls onto his back and Dean watches him in dark profile. "Seeing the way it. <em>Unwound </em>you. It was like it picked you apart, unraveled all these rock-hard little knots I'd seen you carrying without even realizing it. You just, you went to pieces, but it was a good thing, it put you in such a good spot, and…" He looks at Dean again. "When I realized you were enjoying it. Me and you. For the first time ever." He takes a deep, shaky breath, and when he blinks, his eyes are shiny. "That was the best."</p><p>"You want me to do anything different?" Dean asks. He'd ask Sam to cool it on the chick-flick moment but they are so far past that it's hilarious.</p><p>"Don't be afraid to ask for what you need, what you want." Sam replies so fast Dean knows he already thought it out. "Even if you're not sure, I can help you work it out. And I think I'd prefer a color system next time. Green, yellow, red. It's more descriptive than a safeword, gives me a better idea of how you're doing."</p><p>Dean's not sure what that is, but he knows he can do it anyway. "Okay."</p><p>They're both quiet for a while, just resting. Dean's marveling at the sheer novelty of touching Sam, being in bed with him, naked around him, with no pain at all. He's not sure it'll ever stop feeling like a miracle, the kind with no strings attached, the kind they never get. But there's something worming its way up inside him, a rock in his boot he's got to get out before it drives him crazy. He's got to ask.</p><p>"How long's it gonna be?" he asks Sam, even though he doubts he'll know. "I mean, how long's this gonna last? Me...y'know. Not hurting."</p><p>Sam hesitates. That's not great.</p><p>"Well, I'm not gonna lie to you, Dean," he admits. "I don't know. But if we're going off other subs, I mean, people who want or need this kinda thing regularly, even if it's for a totally different reason than - "</p><p>"I know what a sub is, Sam," Dean interrupts him dryly. He never thought before that this was really his thing, more of just a fun, kinky diversion he was game to try whenever he ran into somebody who liked it, but he's not wet behind the ears or anything and Sam can't seem to get that through his giant head.</p><p>"Right," Sam says, and coughs. "Anyway. It kinda depends on the person. Sometimes they need it every few days, sometimes once a week or just a couple times a month. Sometimes it's constant. We'll just have to play it by ear, but." He pushes himself up on one elbow. "I'm really hoping it'll last at least a few days for you. Maybe we can get away with doing little stuff to keep it at bay for longer, 'til you need another session like this one."</p><p>"Little stuff?"</p><p>"Wearing the cage under your clothes. Maybe a plug. Stuff like that."</p><p>Dean sucks in a breath that stutters a little around the edges. Sam has the decency not to smirk at that.</p><p>"Yeah, we can't do this one too often," he agrees, voice gone rougher again. "Not unless you're comfortable flaying the skin off me."</p><p>He's not sure he'd mind that. He can tell by Sam's face that he definitely would.</p><p>"Cas can help heal you," Sam says. "He's already offered. He wants to do anything he can to help, I think he blames himself."</p><p>"Wait, wait. Am I hearing you told Cas you were gonna get freaky with me?"</p><p>Sam rolls his eyes. "It's not like he cares."</p><p>And he's right about that. Castiel's been third-wheeling with them so long it'd be weirder if he didn't know. Probably hurt his feelings. Speaking of, Dean owes him a conversation and an apology, but...not tonight.</p><p>"So can he do that? Heal me."</p><p>"He oughta be able to, yeah. They'll be really minor wounds."</p><p>"Guess I owe him a thank-you, then." Dean lets his eyes close. He'll add it to the tally.</p><p>Abruptly, out of nowhere, Sam says, "I'm not gonna start slapping you in the face for lying on hunts. Or anything like that."</p><p>Dean opens his eyes, squints at him. "Uh, no? Of course not."</p><p>"I'm not gonna whip you for overeating," Sam pushes. "Or put the cage on you for killing something."</p><p>"Why the fuck would you?"</p><p>"Because I don't want you to want that. Or need it." Sam pushes himself up again, shaking his head. "This isn't a replacement for the thing that whatever angel put on you when you were a baby. In you, whatever. It's not a punishment for all the bad things you do. It's prevention, so you don't have to feel that, because out of everybody on the entire planet, you deserve it the absolute least."</p><p>Somehow, Dean seriously doubts that, but Sam's touching him again before he can say anything. Fingers stroking through his hair. Huge hand cupping the back of his neck, protective, loving. The two of them study each other through their eyelashes. Not for the first time, Dean thinks about how they look so different they barely come across as brothers, but they're still similar enough that the people who know them can't stop seeing it.</p><p>"Do you understand that?" Sam asks, for about the thousandth time tonight. He's breathing the words against Dean's mouth. "Can you do that for me? See it that - " He cuts himself off, grimaces. "God, I'm sorry. That sounds so condescending."</p><p>"No, it's okay," Dean assures him. "It's good. I need it that way, I think. I need you giving it to me like that. Something I can do for you."</p><p>Sam doesn't look convinced, so Dean adds, "You were talking about it being framed the right way, weren't you? Earlier. This feels...it feels like this'll work for me."</p><p>Sam doesn't seem thrilled by that.</p><p>"You don't need to do it, this, for me," he tells Dean, so quiet Dean wouldn't be able to hear him if they weren't snuggled up against each other like twins in the womb. "You can think about it that way, if you need to. But it'd be nice if. Eventually. You could do it for you." Sam rolls back over, and reaches for Dean's hair, so long. When he starts playing with it, Dean thinks maybe he gets why Sam's grown his out into that chocolatey Farrah Fawcett mane of his. "Because you deserve it. You deserve not to hurt every single day of your life. You don't deserve to be punished, by me, or the thing they put on you. Or anything else."</p><p>"Not for this," Dean agrees, easy. That hand in his hair's got his eyes half-closed. "Not for us."</p><p>"Not for anything," Sam says softly.</p><p>That sticks in Dean's craw for a beat before he repeats, a little more firmly, "Not for this."</p><p>Sam exhales through his nose. It's warm on Dean's face.</p><p>"We'll get there," Sam promises. "I'll get you there."</p><p>"Drag me kicking and screaming," Dean supplies.</p><p>"I mean." Sam smirks. "If you're into that."</p><p>And Dean's laughing at that. Then Sam's kissing him. And it still doesn't hurt, none of it hurts, and Heaven's got nothing on this, this warm paradise of touching and skin and mouth and hands and heartbeats, and Sam brought him here.</p><p>Dean revels in it. Revels in how much his little brother loves him. Thinks back on the long, frayed ribbon of their relationship, stronger than it ever should be, everything they mean to each other woven into it.</p><p>And you know what?</p><p>That doesn't hurt, either.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Title taken from "House on Fire," Rise Against.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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